Backroads and Ballplayers # 106
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from a time when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly is always free and short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
In the News: SEC Math, Happy Endings, Gene Paulette Reinstated
Parity in the SEC
The first five teams in the current RPI rankings are from the SEC. The Razorbacks are number five this week. I am sure all of you understand the simple algorithm that drives the RPI, or maybe not! The Hogs’ record versus the four teams ahead of them is 7-2.
Ten of the sixteen SEC teams are in the top 20 of the current RPI. The SEC teams not in the top RPI’s first ten include 2022 National Champion Ole Miss, 1921 National Champion Mississippi State, and 2025 preseason number one Texas A&M. SEC fans have high expectations. In a highly competitive 16-team league, if a team only wins a title every 16 years, there will be some unhappy fans in the SEC.
Arkansas obviously had the best hitting team in the SEC. There were games when every position player was batting better than .300. The Hogs’ batting average in conference games was an amazing .308. They also led the league in home runs (62), RBIs (248), and Slugging Percentage (.542)
The Horns won two more games than Arkansas. Where did those two wins come from? Although you would never know it from the way the Hogs dominated the Longhorn pitchers in the series sweep in Fayetteville, the Texas pitching staff had the best team ERA in conference games, and they had two excellent relievers. The Texas starters pitched deeper into the game, allowing Dylan Volantis and Max Grubbs to play a significant role in 20 of the Horns’ conference wins. Volantis saved 11 games and won two. Grubbs recorded five wins and two saves.
Call it coaching or managing, I think Van Horn and his staff have done a remarkable job of “building the airplane in the air” over the last two years. The Razorbacks are going to host a Regional and a Super Regional if they qualify.
Perhaps the best is yet to come.
Happy Endings: Mac is back.”
Do you remember how much fun it was to play baseball (softball) when we were kids? It was probably the first time you were on a team and wore a uniform. Mom took a lot of pictures. You can probably dig some of those up, but most of us like to remember the fun more than how we looked. We didn’t understand why our coach was so serious about the game. We were going to stop for ice cream, win or lose.
Will McEntire played on some of those teams. In fact, as a teen, he pitched for the Bryant Black Sox, one of Arkansas’ most successful American Legion Baseball programs. As a graduating senior, he was named the number 10 college baseball prospect in Arkansas, but a finesse pitcher without a dominating fastball was not likely to be highly recruited or taken in the Major League Amateur Draft.
It may not have mattered to Will what team made him an offer. His dream was to be an Arkansas Razorback. He had been to Baum-Walker on Saturday night. He had seen Connor Noland and Heston Kjerstad. He had heard 10,000 stand up and call the Hogs, and a college degree would make his folks happy. Most of the other colleges in Arkansas would have loved to have a player in Perfect Games’ top 500, but Will McEntire followed his dream and walked on at Arkansas.
In the fall of 2019, a few days after his 19th birthday, McEntire headed to Fayetteville to play with Noland, Kjerstad, and Kevin Kopps. Unfortunately, his debut was in the spring of 2020. With perhaps the best roster the Hogs had built in years, college baseball lost to Covid-19, and the season ended before a single SEC game was played. McEntire had gotten off to a good start. In two appearances, he had pitched eight innings, posted a 1.13 ERA, and recorded a pitching victory.
That unfortunate short season began a series of events that might have discouraged a young man who wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be. Will McEntire, the guy whose success depended on control and an assortment of breaking pitches, would get lost in the mix and have to prove himself in the Hogs' toughest situations.
In late May of 2021, after being redshirted for the regular college season, he found himself in Duluth, Minnesota, watching on TV while his teammates played in the NCAA Regional in Fayetteville. He was the best pitcher on his team that summer and was named to the Northwoods League All-Star team.
Despite his success in the Northwoods Collegiate League, McEntire was not in the Razorbacks’ early-season plans, and he did not make his first start of the 2022 season until April 12. After gradually proving himself in the SEC schedule, McEntire began to get more meaningful opportunities, and by the postseason, he had become a valuable member of the pitching staff and a fan favorite.
He pitched in two games in the Regional at Oklahoma State and 5 2/3 scoreless innings in a victory over North Carolina in the Regional that earned the Hogs a spot in the College World Series. He delivered his most dominant outing of the season vs. No. 25 Auburn in the CWS, working a season-long seven innings and striking out nine while allowing just one run on three hits.
In 2023 and 2024, McEntire stayed busy as a spot starter and long reliever. He led the team in innings pitched in 2023 and added a 5-0 record in 2024 while leading the SEC West Division Champions with 30 appearances.
Although he had pitched in four seasons, the NCAA would allow those players who participated in the Covid-shortened season one more year of eligibility. Twenty-four-year-old Will McEntire said, “Why not?” After all, he was right where he always wanted to be.
On May 17, 2025, McEntire struck out Tennessee’s Blake Grimmer for career strikeout number 232. That strikeout tied Kevin Kopps for seventh in career strikeouts by a Razorback pitcher. Could there be more magical moments ahead?
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Commissioner Reinstates Gene Paulette
Little Rock Ballplayer Gene Paulette, Reinstated —Arkansas Gazette, Brett Barrouquere
Maybe you saw this headline on May 9. Perhaps the name in bold on the sports page was Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, or Buck Weaver. In the Arkansas Gazette, it was Gene Paulette.
Rose, Jackson, Weaver, and Paulette joined the other deceased individuals who had previously been placed on the permanently ineligible list for violating Rule 21, which bars players, umpires, club and league officials, and employees from gambling on baseball. The first of these reinstated players to be banned for life was an adopted son of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Eugene Edward Paulette was born in Centralia, Illinois, on May 26, 1891, the 11th of 12 children born to Joseph Paulette and Marguerite Paulette. Early in Gene Paulette’s life, the family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Joe Paulette worked on the railroad as an engineer.
Former Travelers manager Mike Finn found young Gene playing on a semipro team in the Little Rock City League in 1911. Finn spoke so highly of the youngster he had discovered that by the end of the summer, Paulette was a major league baseball player in New York City.
That promotion was too much, too soon for a 20-year-old who had not played any minor league baseball. He played in 10 games, batted 12 times, and got two hits. By 1912, Paulette found himself in Mobile of the old Southern Association, a more appropriate beginning for a young infielder who had been playing semi-pro baseball in Arkansas.
After his unsuccessful beginning in the big leagues, it would take Gene Paulette five more seasons to return to the major leagues. This time, Paulette was ready for a career in the major leagues that would span five seasons and about 500 games. Most of these were in St. Louis with the St. Louis Browns and later the Cardinals.
While playing in St. Louis, Paulette became acquainted with a couple of gamblers who at least discussed a loan for Paulette in consideration for some possible game fixes. Here is where the story moves into a series of unproven accusations. Money changed hands. Paulette later claimed it was a loan, but he was in the wrong place and about to meet the wrong man.
An ambitious arbiter named Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the new commissioner of baseball, appointed by the owners to clean up the game. Among the most pressing tasks was to get gamblers and game fixing out of baseball. Landis had insisted that he be given undisputed power to assess fines, temporarily suspend players, owners, and other baseball men, and ban serious offenders permanently.
Landis was perhaps 5’6” and 130 lbs, but he was a man to be feared, and he proved that immediately. On March 24, 1921, baseball’s first commissioner suspended Gene Paulette from baseball “indefinitely.” Paulette would never play another major league game.
Paulette returned to his home in Little Rock, and for a time, he played and managed independent league teams in the Jonesboro area. By 1926, his name had disappeared from the Little Rock sports pages, and his baseball story was forgotten in his adopted hometown.
Paulette worked for the Iron Mountain Railroad and later became a yard master for Missouri Pacific. He was active in Holy Souls Catholic Church in Little Rock and a member of the Catholic Men’s Club.
Gene Paulette died on February 8, 1966. His obituary does not mention that he played in 500 major league games in the decade from 1910-1920, the most games played by any Arkansan during that decade.
He was never prosecuted for any crime.
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Hey Jim, you've probably noticed, but just in case....UCA's Noah Cameron has had a pretty good start to his career for the Royals. https://x.com/Krafty_3/status/1923903314661376506. With a couple of injuries in the rotation, I think he's going to be in the bigs for a while.